2025 Call for Proposals
Conference on Community Writing™
“Designing Justice Across Space, Place, and Time”
Detroit, MI
October 23-25, 2025
Sponsored by Wayne State University and Michigan State University
Call for Proposals
Deadline for proposal submissions: Monday, February 17, 2025
The Coalition for Community Writing (CCW) invites you to imagine community writing as designing justice across space, place, and time at our sixth biennial Conference on Community Writing. The conference, hosted at Wayne State University in the vibrant and ever-evolving city of Detroit, Michigan, welcomes community residents, organizers, nonprofit leaders, writers, artists, journalists, digital storytellers, teachers, students, scholars and more, who all theorize, enact, and write the stories of community change. CCW focuses on community writing, capaciously defined, as a framework to explore how change happens. In the work of social change, community writing is necessary, contemplative, therapeutic, coalition-building, and action-based. In community writing, people use design in material and multimodal ways to shape curriculum, projects, policy, grant funding, archives, museums, public art and performance. It can be invisible (in terms of relationships that harvest and sustain cultural capital) and visible (in terms of specific projects, initiatives, and non-profit groups); it can be granular or encompassing in focus.
For the 2025 conference, we ask you to think about how designing justice reflects or speaks to experiences and projects in your communities locally, across the country, and across the world. And we welcome community actors from a range of workplaces, institutions, and disciplines to share these experiences at this conference. For example, how does the work of nonprofit organizations, technical writers, and teachers help us explore the design and function of community spaces, both digital and physical? How does the work of activists, creative writers, and artists contribute to our sense of place? How does the work of librarians, archivists, historians, and storytellers help us understand the nature of community and community writing over time?
Defining the ways that design and justice come together in community writing work, Aimée Knight (2022) explores “equity-based approaches to writing and designing with communities” (7, emphasis ours), as most desirable; she then provides examples of the ways that community partners and students work together to craft texts across modes that serve the knowledge-making needs of the community. The importance of writing-with is long-established in community writing scholarship (Deans, 2002); however, scholars, activists, and journalists demonstrate how, in public practice, design does not work to the benefit of all community members, who are frequently left out of design processes (e.g., Design Justice Network, 2016; Costanza-Chock, 2020; Henderson, 2022). To counter this, the Design Justice Network has created a “living document” that outlines the principles of design justice, which “rethink[s] design processes, centers people who are normally marginalized by design, and uses collaborative, creative practices to address the deepest challenges our communities face” (“Principles,” n.d.). In the work of community writing, these collaborative and creative practices may result in projects that use social media, mapping, zines, museum exhibits, street art, participatory research, and many other modes to voice and address community needs.
Subtopics
We invite your participation in the 2025 Conference on Community Writing, which aims to trouble and celebrate the notion of design, in complicated, myriad ways across space, place, and time.
As you consider how you might best participate in the conference, we encourage you to reflect on the following questions:
- How is just or unjust design manifesting in the communities you live, work, and study in?
- What lessons of design, of failures and successes, of inclusion and exclusion, might we learn from one another to help us implement purposeful design into community organizing and other community writing initiatives?
- How has design been at the center of your programmatic development of community writing initiatives?
- How can community members participate as equitable partners in program / project design? How might existing designs be resisted or re-envisioned?
- How are undergraduate students conducting community research and/or design?
- How do Space, Place, and Time complicate or make possible the work of designing justice?
- How do digital and virtual spaces function in the design of justice [e.g. for the prison community, in museums and archives]
- How do bodies move through designed spaces or places to experience the fruits of intentional planning, and how might this experience change for people over time? How do relationships function to support the implementation of justice-focused initiatives?
- How does design justice intersect with issues related to land use & policy, community gardens, histories of segregation and redlining? How is thoughtful design linked to initiatives that reconnect Indigenous and other food traditions? What are the design challenges involved in supporting prison writing projects that take place virtually “across the wire,” where the individuals involved occupy such different places?
- Whose experiences are collected, told, and archived, and how? Who speaks for whom? Where and how is community knowledge housed?
- How can designers of social justice think strategically about infrastructure, sustainability, and the future, to ensure that in-the-moment programs continue, but can adapt to fit ongoing challenges and concerns? How can the history of design initiatives be captured in the interest of sustainability?
Propose a Speaking or Creative Role
Concurrent Interactive Workshops (90-minute sessions)
Workshop sessions center highly interactive presentation and collaborative work with audiences who are both academic and non-academic stakeholders for community writing. Successful workshop proposals will provide a brief theoretical background and/or a discussion of community context, a presentation of fruitful collaboration, and practical tasks for the audience that the workshop panel might facilitate. These interactive sessions help attendees learn new skills and processes that they can apply in their own lives, neighborhoods, or places of work. Past workshops have focused on fundraising and grant writing for nonprofits, community organizing and activism, building relationships between colleges and community organizations, among many other topics.
Concurrent Session Formats (60-minute sessions)
While we ask presenters to provide access copies to make talks more accessible, we are hoping to break free of the common “read paper” and strongly encourage talks that are more interactive and dynamic. Please specify in your proposal how to plan to generate interaction with attendees.
Group and Individual Panel Presentation Session
A 60-minute full panel session typically consists of 3-5 speakers/facilitators leading for about 8-15 minutes each, offering plenty of time for shared Q&A. A group of speakers may propose a plan for a full 60-minute panel, or individuals may propose an 8-15 minute dynamic presentation that will be combined with others by the Conference Planning Committee.
For full panels where group members will segment the time, please be sure to specify each individual presentation title and professional affiliation for each speaker, if applicable. Please also indicate who will serve as panel chair. All speaker names and emails must be included in the proposal.
Talks can be works-in-progress related to community writing or the conference’s theme, and if that’s the case, please let us know how you would use your time to solicit either general feedback or guidance based on specific questions you have about your project.
Roundtable Discussion Session
In a 60-minute roundtable, participants will engage in a focused discussion on a specific theme with one or more facilitators guiding or moderating the dialogue. Roundtables should be proposed as full panels, but with the full time used for discussion among presenters and audience members. Roundtable discussion proposals should include a list of talking points, discussion questions attendees may be asked to consider, relationship between the speakers, and an explanation of the practical relevance of the discussion. Please be sure to specify the individual talk titles and professional affiliations for each speaker in the application, if applicable. Please also indicate who will serve as roundtable chair. All speaker names and emails must be included in the proposal.
Guided Contemplative Practice Session (60-minute sessions)
In a 60-minute Guided Contemplative Practice Session, facilitators will lead participants through a guided contemplative or meditation practice. If your session requires movement, please put this into the description for attendees’ accessibility considerations.
Creative Displays (Saturday)
Artistic and/or performative expressions including digital storytelling, digital poster, visual, audio, podcast, photography, interview, and kinetic ideas of community and just design. Please include in your proposal the time requirements for the proposed creative display with a 12-minute limit. These will be pre recorded and shared with participants in the conference’s online space as well as the physical space of the conference. Attendees will be able to post comments and questions asynchronously.
Undergraduate Poster Presentations (Saturday)
Undergraduate students are invited to propose poster presentations, which will include a physical or digital display (poster), a set of talking points, and question-and-answer discussions with attendees. Poster sessions will run for 60 minutes on Saturday. Instructors are encouraged to mentor students in preparing proposals and coach students on presentation and discussion.
Submission Details
Proposals for all formats should be 250-500 words. Submit a proposal here. Submission deadline is Monday, February 17, 2025 . To access the proposal portal or to find conference information, visit the conference website: www.communitywriting.org. Check back regularly for updates. To ensure that you receive all conference information, we recommend that you subscribe to the Coalition for Community Writing listserv.
With gratitude, we ask that all in person presenters be Coalition for Community Writing members at the time of the conference and plan to register for the conference at an early bird rate between May-July 2025, if at all possible. Early registration will not only offer you a discount, it also helps the host committee to plan and to create the best experience for you. Membership is not required to submit a proposal, though we sure do appreciate the support if you’re able.
References and Resources
*Abraham, S., & Kedley, K. (2021). You Can’t Say Pupusa Without Saying Pupusa: Translanguaging in a Community-Based Writing Center. Community Literacy Journal, 15(1), 5.
Afana, D. (2024). Officials, conservationists announce Detroit as certified Bee City on World Bee Day. Detroit Free Press, 21 May 2024. https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2024/05/21/detroit-bee-city-usa-affiliate/73769858007/
*Brizee, A., Pascual-Ferrá, P., & Caranante, G. (2020). High-impact civic engagement: Outcomes of community-based research in technical writing courses. Journal of technical writing and communication, 50(3), 224-251.https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0047281619853266
Costanza-Chock, S. (2020). Design justice: Community-led practices to build the worlds we need. The MIT Press. https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/4605/Design-JusticeCommunity-Led-Practices-to-Build-the
*Villa, J., Hinojosa, Y.I., & Baca, I. (Eds.). (2021). #cripthevote: Disability Activism, Social Media, and the Campaign for Communal Visibility [Special Issue]. Reflections: A Journal of Community-Engaged Writing and Rhetoric. https://reflectionsjournal.net/2021/06/cripthevote-disability-activism-social-media-and-the-campaign-for-communal-visibility/
*Dadurka, D., & Pigg, S. (2012). Mapping Complex Terrains: Bridging Social Media and Community Literacies. Community Literacy Journal 6(1), 7-22. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/clj.2012.0010.
*Garrido, G. J. L. (2021). Radical geography and advocacy mapping: the case of the Detroit Geographical Expedition and Institute (1968–1972). Journal of Planning History, 20(4), 291-307.
*Guzzetti, B. J., & Gamboa, M. (2004). Zines for social justice: Adolescent girls writing on their own. Reading research quarterly, 39(4), 408-436.
Henderson, S. (2022). Following years of revitalization, Detroit still has a long way to go. Metropolis, 27 July 2022. https://metropolismag.com/viewpoints/the-detroit-divide/
Knight, A. (2022). Community is the way: Engaged writing and designing for transformative change. The WAC Clearinghouse and University Press of Colorado. https://wac.colostate.edu/books/practice/community/
*Lesh, C. (2017). Writing Boston: Graffiti Bombing as Community Publishing. Community Literacy Journal, 12(1), 62-86.
“Our Mission.” (n.d.). Wilson Adaptive Technologies (WAT). Accessed 8 September 2024, https://wilsonadaptive.com/mission/
*Piepmeier, A. (2008). Why zines matter: Materiality and the creation of embodied community. American Periodicals, 18(2), 213-238.
“Principles.” (n.d.). Design Justice Network. Accessed 15 September 2024, https://designjustice.org/principles-overview
Sackey, D. J. (2022). Without permission: guerrilla gardening, contested places, spatial justice. Review of Communication, 22(4), 364–377. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/10.1080/15358593.2022.2133970
Thompson, C. (2023). Detroit group secures ‘historic’ grant to plant tens of thousands of new trees in city. Detroit Free Press, 15 Sept. 2023. https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2023/09/15/trees-detroit-usda-grant-hamtramck-pontiac-sterling-heights-ann-arbor-lansing-grand-rapids-kalamazoo/70865008007/
*Trimble, T., Baldwin, P., Lawson, C., & Mubeen, M. (2020). The 1967 Project. Community Literacy Journal 14(2), 154-161. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/clj.2020.a772127.
*Valli, C. (2021). Participatory dissemination: bridging in-depth interviews, participation, and creative visual methods through Interview-Based Zine-Making (IBZM). Fennia, 199(1), 25-45. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1580616/FULLTEXT01.pdf